SINGLETONS! It’s time to come out of the cupboards, shimmy out of the shadows, dance out of the darkness and make yourself known to the world at large. If it wasn’t already, we want to declare it official; online dating has finally shaken off the stigma! Your mom uses it, your grandpa uses it, half of your co-workers and all your single college buddies are signed up. It’s in the mainstream press, on the TV, all over the NASDAQ and built in to your cellphone. The age of digital love has finally arrived.

CHEQUERED PAST

It’s true that the journey has been a long one, fraught with danger for all those who first explored this uncharted territory. Back in the early 80s, prehistoric companies like CompuServe marketed chat through a computer and modem as a ‘CB simulator’, appealing to all those wannabe truckers who were still clinging on to the CB radio craze of the mid-1970s. It just goes to show that, even before the miracle of the Internet, lonely hearts still turned to technology as a way to small-talk with anonymous strangers in a weird language that their parents didn’t understand.

NERD IS THE WORD

Unfortunately, my previous sentence pretty much sums up the mainstream attitude towards Internet chat from its conception in the mid-80s through the enormous rise in chat room activity during the late 90s and even up to very recent times. The assumption was that if you met people online then you simply weren’t capable of ‘normal’ face-to-face social interaction and had no hope of ever forming a fulfilling relationship with anybody. With that sort of backward, close-minded attitude, how on Earth did mankind ever invent something as open and full of glimmering potential as the World Wide Web?

DATING: REBOOTED

Fast forward to the last quarter of 2012 and it seems we have created a Bizarro world; a sort of parallel universe which, if visited by someone from fifteen years ago, would seem on the surface to be not much different. War in the Middle East, check; global recession, no surprise there…but wait…online dating is ACCEPTABLE now?! It might seem hard to believe to our time-travelling counterpart but if you look at the evidence it is shocking that we ever doubted the power of the Internet to meet someone special.

MEANT TO BE

Long distance relationships are by no means a modern invention; in ye days of olde couples would be torn apart by the need to work, escape poverty and disease or even by war. Tradition dictated that lovers would marry at a tender age and some spent the majority of their marriage apart; it’s safe to say that they would have killed to have AOL instant messenger for even one day. Another popular tradition was arranged marriage, and if your local farmer had ugly daughters then there was no way out for you. In this age of worldwide commerce, dad has a lot more scope to choose a business partner with good genetics.

SCREENING PROCESS

It’s no secret that some relationships can fall apart when they climb those all-important stairs to the bedroom. When you get comfortable enough to reveal that kinkier-than-thou, don’t-tell-mother fetish to your one and only, the sad truth is that they might run a mile. However in today’s society you can hold your head up high, walk straight into the online community that suits your naughty fantasy best and meet like-minded people with whom sex may well be worth moving cross-country for. If it’s not, there are a load more fish byting in the digital sea.

DIGITAL FRONTIERS

If you’re reading this, you may have been an early adopter who has loved and lost on eHarmony and lived to tell the tale, or perhaps you were a one-time naysayer who saw the light, took the plunge and now doesn’t leave home without your Badoo mobile app. Either way, tastes have changed worldwide and what was a fringe endeavour is now a mainstream way of life because of constant improvement driven by you; the user. So keep chatting, keep flirting and keep on making the online dating scene an exciting movement to be a part of. After all, to the incumbent generation a world without online dating is simply history.

This article was written by Barry Cooke. Barry is a respected usability consultant who has been working in the Internet market for over 15 years in a number of different sectors. He is also a social media expert and a passionate user of social networks such as Twitter and Badoo.

When I met a guy on Match.com in 2004, we told everyone that we met at a grocery story in the produce section. That relationship lasted for 5 years. These days, 2 people could be on a first date and would have no qualms about admitting to finding each other online. I am happy that online dating has become a part of normal society (it’s not just for old, ugly people), but I also think it could be a complete waste of time and money if you’re not using the service that suits you best. This run-down should come in handy:

eHarmony: If you’re ready for marriage, are an engineer (or related field) and have a lot of time on your hands. By now, you should all be familiar with how eHarmony matches you on 8930928357945 dimensions of compatibility. So you know that means answering 8930928357945 questions about who you are. This is a perfect site for someone who is very rational and believes that if you chug in A and B, you’ll get C (a serious relationship). It’s very formulaic and has no way of taking into account chemistry. Fuck chemistry!

Match.com: If you aspire to be a manwhore and want to fill your weeks packed full of dates; however, you don’t want to be too obvious about it. Match skews younger and the inventory is bigger, especially now that they acquired OkCupid. It’s easy to do drive-by emails and see who you hit. It’s a fun numbers game and a great substitute for Steak and Porn Fridays.

Chemistry.com: If you’re embarrassed to use eHarmony. Everyone knows that if you want something serious, you go on eHarmony. But some guys don’t want to be so obvious about it so they go on Match’s sister site, Chemistry.com, which is basically eHarmony. But not. You’ll answer a bazillion questions about yourself and get matched up with 4 gnarly girls in your area. At which point, you say, “I’d rather fuck some sluts on Match.” Genius, Match.com. Genius.

OkCupid and Plentyoffish: If you want an STD. Listen, these sites are free so obviously it’s quantity over quality. You’ll definitely get to bang lots of chicks, and sometimes you don’t even need to be drunk! But it’s guaranteed you’ll encounter at least one crazy chick who professionally photoshops her profile picture, frames it and gives it to you on your first date, and then pulls out 2 strands of your hair to add to her “Man Hair” collection. TRUE OkCupid STORY, BTW.

DateMySchool: If you’re an elitist douche and proud of it. This site was started by a Columbia MBA student who believed that people who invest in their education and careers deserve to be with others of the same caliber. Right now the site is only open to students of Columbia, NYU and FIT (for the hot chicks seeking MRS degrees). You can also limit your profile to be shown to certain types of people such as only NYU Law students. I guess it makes sense. I mean, if you’ve literally fucked everyone in your grad program, especially the married ones, why not test out the grad school relationship curse at other schools! Yay! And oh, an equally-as-douchey one to check out is: DateHarvardSq.com

JDate: If you want to fit in in NYC. I know, this is a dating site for Jews but it’s not exclusive. If you want to find desperate Jewish girls at the haggard age of 24, this is the site for you! You’ll be guaranteed 1) a date every night, 2) a significant increase in your Facebook friends, and 3) a loving jdate family where you’ll run into each other EVERYWHERE. So much fun. And better yet, IM’ing on the site is free for you cheapos.

ANDROID: I hear nothing but complaints about Android phones (video freezes, easy to hang up on people, etc) so I presume Android users are usually frustrated and in a pissy mood. No ass for those bitches.

BLACKBERRY: Blackberry users are too addicted to their crackberry (it takes one to know one), so they can’t focus on getting laid when they’re obsessing over the flashing red light. They get some ass because they give off the persona of a successful business person, but at the end of the day, when they can’t keep their eyes off of their BBM, how can they make googly eyes at any human?

IPHONE: iPhone users like attention. They like to show off their pretty iPhone along with their dazzling personality. You can’t get attention sitting at home alone, so, iPhone users are generally more out and about in public. They’re also good with their fingers (hello, touchscreen), which comes in handy in bed. Additionally, iPhone users have the best access to the internet, so they can easily get on Singlefied.com for pick-up tips😉.

I do think, though, that iPhone users may also have a tendency to exaggerate to make themselves seem more iPhone-cool-worthy. I bet some of these iPhoners in the study inflated their numbers!

And in the case of iPhone users in NYC, because AT&T is so bad here, they’re having sex instead of talking on the phone. Which, btw, should be the case for everybody.

Found this hilarious site, OMG Cupid, that hosts a compilation of the freaks you’ll find on OKCupid. I mean, what do you expect from a free dating site, right? I have a lot to say about online dating, but I will save that for another post. For now, enjoy some amazing pictures with your milk and cookies this Christmas morning.